When You've Been Stuck in Erratic and Disordered Eating so long that Normal Eating Seems Unattai
After years spent alternating between starving streaks, intermittent fasting, compensating through purging and exercise, all of which to earn the next bite I yearned for so earnestly, I scoffed at the concept of the traditional routine that almost everyone subscribed to.
There was no way.
I began to assume that some form of erraticism in my eating would always linger and there would be absolutely no use in trying to change my fate. I cut off all hope and silenced others who told me to hold onto hope for that day of sustained normal eating would eventually come. I hated the hope they had for my future because I felt that they were mocking my inability to do so after so long, that they had the capacity of hoping for better days when there I was, stuck in pessimism and self-defeat to protect myself from more disappointment as each year passed and no progress had been made.
I felt like an absolute failure as I could not even remember how to eat normally (something so fundamental to being human). I forgot how to listen to my body and I could not recognise or control myself in the realms of hunger and satiety. I either suppressed the hunger so much that I no longer felt hungry, or eating enormous portions till my stomach ached. With years of disordered eating and gastritis, I no longer had the faintest clue of what a normal day of eating would be like if I was not chained by the protocol of the hospital ward. Even in the ward, when I was made to gain at least one kilogram per week, I was continually stuffed with food even when I was not hungry; even when I was close to vomiting, I was not permitted to stop and my intake was solely dependent on the meal plan prescribed to me by the dietician. Instead, they gave me pills multiple times a day to quell my nausea just to continue eating even when my body protested on biological grounds. I am not exaggerating here when I was made to take something equivalent to a bowl of ban mian every 2.5 hours everyday (8am-10pm).
What is normal eating?
I became clouded by the appeal of intuitive eating as I believed that it only made sense to eat when I was hungry and stop whenever I was full - if I felt like I was too preoccupied to fully enjoy a meal in the day, I would wait till 5/6pm (which I did for about 2 months or more in 2017) then proceed to have a nice cooling nice cream bowl at home, eat what I love through the night or even have grazing nights into the wee hours of the morning just because that was the time when I truly felt calm enough to nuzzle into my fav foods.
When I ditched SGH in Nov 2016, and embarked on self-recovery, I continued to eat to recover physically in a way that made me comfortably happy. I was putting off food till 11+pm almost every night because I had school and work to go to, lasting from 8am-11pm for most days and I could not muster up the courage to eat in front of people. I found the serenity in gorging myself silly when I got home, eating 30+ weetameal biscuits every night. I waited for everyone to fall asleep sometimes, forcing myself to stay up to 2+am when "the coast was clear" for me to embark on my eating frenzy/kitchen raid where I would tear part the pantry of anything I found edible. I thought nothing of it because I was happy eating, whenever I did eat, I was happy and I could manage the guilt if there was any. I battled through the night sweats as my metabolism began to pick up and it emboldened me to eat more because I was loving this new life of "unrestricted" eating. It was orgasmic to shove in biscuit after biscuit (no sexual innuendo intended, so back off nassstey people reading my post!) Emerging from the past context of starving for days, I honestly felt that my approach in recovery this time was perfect. I was so happy, I had energy, and surprisingly, I was coping mentally better than ever before with triggers that would have normally send me spiralling into relapse. I took it all as indications of my recovery and that ED was slowly disappearing from my life.
In the guise of self-perceived happiness, I was turning a blind eye to the pertinent denial that underpinned my "recovered" lifestyle. I had trained myself to follow this routine of self-created normalised eating so religiously that my body became attune to this even after I started to gain more traction in recovery. I had gained an immense amount of weight, back to where people assumed that I was no longer dying but looking much healthier. I took the pride they had in how far I've come as an indication to stop improving this standard of "normalised" and "unrestricted" eating. People no longer expressed worry when I skipped meals or insisted that I eat anymore - there was no longer a need to eat that copious amount of food to stay out of the ward as I was formerly threatened with.
I began to feel immensely guilty about continuing to recover with my semi-healthy-weight body for no one egged me on to demand more in my physical recovery. Thus, I assumed that I was now this fat blob that people would be happy with should I skip a meal to save on calories that I no longer required.
Though I had experienced a period of absolute freedom, having traditional normal eating times and portions for about one month plus, I began to lose my vision and motivation for achieving what I knew was the image of full recovery. With no one highlighting the flaws in my erratic eating (only eating from 6pm-2am), I began to assume that my erratic eating was acceptable and there was no need to change. I continued to live this way of concentrating my intake at night with a motive.
Since no one gave me the cue of the dire need to me to eat, which aided in de-escalating my guilt of caloric intake, I created my own necessity. Even when I felt hungry in the day, I would find anything to do to prevent me from eating. I deliberately found working shifts that inhibited eating normally, stayed in libraries as food and drink was not permitted or walking round and round just to stay away from any access of my safe foods that I ate in my room at midnight in the dark. This would mean that I could now not deny myself food and feel carefree while eating because I know for a fact that the day is ending and if I delay eating or restrict in fear, I would not have enough energy for the next day of intense activity/my busy schedule. Time was ticking and I went for round after round of food, with way less anxiety as I knew that I had to get enough in me before my window of opportunity to load up on food was closed.
But, enough with all this avoidance and denial of normalised eating, whatever bullshit I've been telling myself are all part of ED's lies. With all the days in hospital, in program, with tons of professionals telling you what is normal eating, I cannot continue to be oblivious to the fact that what I'm doing, though eating "freely", is entirely an illusion that has got to disintegrate. This is reality and:
"The only way is to fight it every day, every meal, every snack. And when I do recover, I will be able to look back on this experience and see myself as strong as opposed to believing the lies of the demon that I am “weak” for recovering. Perchance, when this is all over, I might be able to consider myself courageous for fighting this battle. No matter how all-consuming the tornado of guilt is, no matter how many times I want to give up and capitulate to the demon, I will not. For me, for everyone."
Timings aside, the types of food has got to normalise as well. Every ED imposes ridiculous and illogical rules that sometimes defy the very logic of ED itself sometimes (for example, for me, I denied any real meal since April this year, only surviving on nice cream, soy ice cream, acai, smoothies, weetbix and weetameal biscuits, while fearing so much over a salad with no dressing - just veges, just coz it was outside the permitted circle I had). Most of the time, I've come to realise that I've been following this out of routine habit and this so called catastrophe I perceive will happen should I break any of the ludicrous rules never ever materializes. It is the imagined threat and anxiety in anticipation of change and jumping into something outside of my comfort zone that is scary, everything else is something that I've learned to manage after years of struggle.
So, I say, why not?
Yes, for the past few days when I've been trying to change my erratic eating, I've been struggling to stick to my plan, seeing other people with more erratic eating while possessing bodies that I wish I had. It is hard as hell, but as a friend told me, obviously recovery is hard, if it wasn't, everyone who wants to be recovered would already be. If you know what you're doing is wrong, why are you still doing it? Although
people may not agree that I need to gain anymore weight; eat anymore; or change my eating habits;
this is my life and I know for a fact, what will actually make me free from ED, so, I'm all in, tears and all, the answer is breakfast, lunch, dinner and all the snacks that I desire for there is no shame in trying albeit naysayers - both internal and external.
